Millennium-long summer temperature variations in the European Alps as reconstructed from tree rings

Abstract

Abstract. This paper presents a reconstruction of the summer temperatures over the Greater Alpine Region (44.05 • -47.41 • N, 6.43 • -13 • E) during the last millennium based on a network of 38 multi-centennial larch and stone pine chronologies. Tree ring series are standardized using an Adaptative Regional Growth Curve, which attempts to remove the age effect from the low frequency variations in the series. The proxies are calibrated using the June to August mean temperatures from the HISTALP high-elevation temperature time series spanning the 1818-2003. The method combines an analogue technique, which is able to extend the too short tree-ring series, an artificial neural network technique for an optimal non-linear calibration including a bootstrap technique for calculating error assessment on the reconstruction.

Climate signals in the ring widths and stable carbon, hydrogen and oxygen isotopic composition of Larix decidua growing at the forest limit in the southeastern European Alps

“…Although Alpine summer temperatures have been reconstructed based on larch tree ring maximum latewood density (MXD) and/or tree ring width (TRW) (Büntgen et al 2006;Corona et al 2010), there has been limited dendroclimatological research in the southeastern Alps and western Balkans. The results showed that tree ring growth is closely correlated with temperature in June (Carrer and Urbinati 2006;Levanič 2006).…”

A 414-year tree-ring-based April–July minimum temperature reconstruction and its implications for the extreme climate events, northeast China

“…It is necessary to put the present climate regime in the context of long-term perspectives, which forces a reliance on natural proxy records to reconstruct the past climate. Tree rings have been widely applied in global climate change studies and paleoclimate reconstructions on both regional and global scales because they offer accurate and continuous temporal record as well as being are widespread and easily replicated (Corona et al, 2010;Popa and Bouriaud, 2014;Kress et al, 2014).…”

Temperature variability at Dürres Maar, Germany during the Migration Period and at High Medieval Times, inferred from stable carbon isotopes of <i>Sphagnum</i> cellulose

“…Nevertheless, part of the underestimation of the temperature variability by our reconstruction must originate from another reason. This phenomenon has been previously described for tree-ring based reconstructions of temperature variability and was attributed to the overwhelming problem that a proxy is not controlled by one single environmental variable (e.g., Büntgen et al, 2005;Corona et al, 2010). Sphagnum plants and trees, however, certainly react in very different ways on climate variables.…”